Cleaning old terracotta floortiles

[irish_manc]

Hi all,
Has anyone any advice on cleaning old, unsealed (I think) terracotta tiles? We have a large entrance hall, and even after a good mopping the tiles are covered in unidentified marks and stains. Are there any specialist cleaning products that we should use? Is it best to seal them once they're properly cleaned? I do prefer the tiles to have a 'matt' look rather than shiny. Thanks for any advice!

[chrissiehope]

We looked into this about 4 years ago, as we have the same sortof tiles in our kitchen. We found a company called Monestir who sold products for this, and a very helpful member of staff called David gave us the name of a firm that does the actual cleaning - http://todobarro.com/ Unfortunately, as their specialist was based in Castellon who only visited the coast in June/July, and we didn't live there permanently, we never managed to get it done
Hope this helps - I ended up polishing each tile with a nailbrush & Mansion floor polish on the alternate red tiles, and clear wax on the white/grey ones in between - they did look a bit better...

[wollie]

i notice you new to this..
sometimes the wear and tear on these "rustic tiles" is an added feature...
if it were me and unless it was very bad I would wait as sometimes perfect not what its about...

just an opinion...

[irish_manc]

Thanks for the advice Chrissie - I'll let you know how I get on!

Wollie - agreed - 'rustic' tiles can be a great feature, but if any of the more prominent stains can be removed then I think it's worth doing.

[TorreDelAguila]

A turbo jetwash, with a wet-vac handy (as indoors) will shift a lot of the ingrained dirt.

[Weescottie]

My builders suggest a bit of Aqua fuerte in a bucket of water, not tried it yet...bit scared to be truthful....he says use a plastic bucket...I know it worked wonders on my badly stained toilet pan

[chrissiehope]

If you're going to try agua fuerte, test on a spare tile first....

[Weescottie]

Perhaps wear my wellies....shall try it out

[Weescottie]

Success, a fairly weak solution of agua fuerte and water cleaned my old tiles up a treat. They are about 25 years old and looking a bit dull. Is there something I could apply to them to shine them up a bit. They are on the balcony so get a fair bit of exposure to the elements, so whatever I applied would need to be extra durable.